Padraig Harrington-Roger Maltbie dust-up: What sparked it

Padraig Harrington was cruising through his opening round at the U.S. Senior Open on Thursday. After a four-birdie 32 on the front nine of the Broadmoor’s East Course in Colorado Springs, Colo., Harrington parred his first five holes on the back side and was looking like he might be the only player in the field to play the round bogey-free.

Then came his tee shot on the 464-yard par-4 15th.

Harrington drew back his driver and pulled his ball into a thicket of trees left of the fairway. When Harrington and his caddie, Ronan Flood, arrived at the area where Harrington’s ball had disappeared, the search was on: marshals, officials, Harrington and Flood, all rooting through the foliage with hopes of unearthing Harrington’s ball. Under Rule 18.2, they had no more than 3 minutes to hunt.

Not among the search-party participants was the walking TV reporter in the group, NBC’s Roger Maltbie. It’s common practice for on-course analysts to assist players in finding their balls, but in this instance, Maltbie told GOLF.com in a phone interview Saturday morning, he was unable to help because his producer had asked Maltbie to be prepared to deliver an on-air report of what was unfolding.

“I can’t do it from inside the thick of the trees,” Maltbie said. “So I stayed outside, and then [Harrington] walked near me and he said, ‘You could help search for the ball,’ and I just didn’t respond.” Maltbie said the ball was deep in the trees and “the odds of finding it were slim,” but regardless, he said, he was in no position to help; his priority was situating himself to describe the action to viewers.

As Harrington’s search time began to expire, an official in the group did something unusual, Maltbie said. Instead of merely alerting Harrington and Flood that their time was nearly up, the official counted down from 10 seconds: 10, 9, 8, 7…, which Maltbie said made a tense situation tenser. “He’s counting it out, right?” Maltbie said. “And then he says, ‘That’s it, there’s a cart over here, the ball’s lost.’”

Harrington returned to the tee and hit a second tee ball (his third shot) into the right rough. From there, Harrington hit an excellent approach to about 15 feet and holed the putt for a gritty bogey.   

On the next tee, at the par-3 16th, things got even more strained, Maltbie said. As Maltbie’s spotter was peering into Harrington’s bag to try and surmise what club Harrington was using, Flood told the spotter to “piss off,” Maltbie said. “So that was the first clue we had that the Harrington camp isn’t very happy.”

Maltbie said that on that hole he also got “the side eye from Padraig a few times” — “no words exchanged, just the side eye.”

On Friday, though, words were exchanged — quite a few of them, in fact, in a now-viral scene that was captured by local TV reporter Brett Forrest, and which is jarring given that Harrington and Maltbie are two of the more amiable figures in the game. Here’s what happened:

When Harrington, who had shot 67 for a share of the first-round lead, had finished his second round Friday and signed for another 67 that ultimately would keep him tied for the lead, Maltbie approached Harrington outside the scoring trailer. He wanted to clear the air.

“I just wanted him to know why I didn’t help search for the ball, right?” Maltbie said. “I’ve never had a cross word with Padraig. I’ve been a Padraig fan all these years. Anyway, I tried to explain to him, ‘Padraig, my producer had told me to stand by. They were going to come to me for a report. I could not do it, searching for your ball inside those trees. So I did not go in.’”

At the beginning of Forrest’s video, Maltbie can be heard saying, “So I should have disobeyed my producer?”

Moments later, Harrington says: “You’ve played golf all your life. You understand. You don’t stand looking at somebody looking for a golf ball.”

Maltbie told GOLF.com: “Every time I tried to explain to him [my position], he said, ‘It’s poor etiquette. It’s golf etiquette to help somebody in search for a ball, and that I should know better after the years of playing.

“I tried to say, Listen, I have a boss. I’m not a player, and if I were a spectator or certainly playing with him, I would have helped him search for his ball. But I was under instructions. It just wouldn’t work. But he wanted no part of it.

“I was very close to saying, ‘All these years, all these checks I’ve gotten from NBC, your name isn’t on any of them. I mean, his caddie works for him, so I’m sure his caddie does what Padraig tells him to do. Well, I have an employer, and if they tell me basically what I’m going to do or what they want from me, I have to honor that. But he just doesn’t see it that way.”

Maltbie added: “Padraig has lots of opinions, and some of them are quite contrary to what most people think, which is part of his charm, okay? I mean that’s part of what makes him Padraig — he has very unique takes on things. But I really expected him to understand.”

Harrington is chasing his second U.S. Senior Open title. Through 36 holes at the Broadmoor, he is tied for the lead, at six under, with Stewart Cink and Mark Hensby, all of whom will play in the final group Saturday, beginning at 10:55 a.m. local time.

Walking with that group for NBC? Yep, Roger Maltbie.

“As fate sort of would have it, I will be covering him today,” Maltbie said. “And if he’s in the last group tomorrow, I’ll probably be covering him again tomorrow.”